


Any Stupid Supervillain (Could Start This Way)

by KlayterMcCabe



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, OT3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-28
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-26 23:01:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1705757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KlayterMcCabe/pseuds/KlayterMcCabe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Character vignettes attached to the second season episodes "Blind Spot," "Deathstroke," and "Unthinkable." Roy is furious and terrified, Sin is cocky and utterly lost, and Thea almost has her shit together. But they have moments, when they're together, when it's like the eye of the storm and everything is at peace.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sin

**Missing Scene from 2x11, "Blind Spot"**

"I really don't think," Sin muttered under her breath, "that your girlfriend giving me a makeover is going to make me look like a _whore_."

Roy surprised her by laughing. "You don't know Thea Queen."

They left Roy behind, and Thea led Sin upstairs by the hand. If normally this indignity would have had Sin's back up, here she found herself shy. Thea was a girl whose wardrobe cost more than Sin's rent, who would think that "group home" meant a roommate in a fabulous loft, who had never been hungry in any context more lingering than a juice cleanse. Thea sat her down in front of a bureau with a huge mirror, and Sin's reflection was perfectly lit, unmarred by cracks or warps in the glass. Thea gazed at her with the impartial expression of a scientist.

"So what's your daily cleansing routine? Do you use, like, soap/toner/moisturizer, or powder or liquid foundation, or both?"

Sin frowned at her reflection. "I dunno. Just soap, I guess."

Thea crouched next to her, and touched Sin's cheek. "Well, you've got great skin. You should at least use some kind of moisturizer on a daily basis. You use sunscreen, right?"

"It's January."

"You should _always_ use sunscreen," said Thea, shaking her head with more sincere disapproval than even Sin's last truancy officer had managed. "Do you wear much make-up?"

"Uh, eyeliner. Obviously."

Thea frowned at the thick lines that rimmed Sin's eyes, carefully applied when she woke up and then smudged to shit only a few hours later. "Yes," she said crisply. "I can see that. So I'm going to introduce you to my cleansing routine, okay, and then we'll do your make-up over a clean slate?"

"Yeah, sure, I guess." Sin wanted to point out that probably a dude who sliced up prostitutes for kicks wouldn't care how clean her face was, but even more than that she didn't want Thea Queen to know that she was the kind of person who went trolling for dudes who liked to cut up prostitutes.

"Okay!" Thea clapped her hands and steered Sin towards the bathroom. "Let's do this! You're going to look a-may-zing."

000

"Wow," said Roy, when they came back downstairs. "You look, uh... The way you should for this, I guess."

"What kind of compliment is that?" barked Thea. "She looks _great_."

"You look great!" echoed Roy, with a tone in his voice caught between amused and bewildered. Sin wondered, suddenly, how much of he and Thea's relationship was this way: Thea always knowing what to do and what to say, and Roy in her wake, never quite sure if his hands were in the right place.

Sin slouched her shoulders. "Your girlfriend washed my hair."

"And now you look _great_ ," said Thea again, running her hand along the buzzed edge of Sin's scalp with an almost proprietary touch. "You know you could look this great all the time, if you wanted to."

Sin rolled her eyes. "Yeah," she said. "I bet the Wet N' Wild I shoplift from CVS will look exactly as good as... well, whatever you use." She'd recognized some of the brands as shit that was too hard to grab from Macy's, but other names, like something called "Givenchy," were completely new to her.

"Okay," she said, after an awkward moment where Thea seemed briefly uncomfortable and Roy briefly surprised, "So I guess I'll head off on my... date."

"Let me walk you to your car," said Roy, with a guilty glance towards Thea that more implied an affair than vigilante justice.

"Wait!" said Thea. "Hold on, I'll be right back." She tore back up the stairs, almost tripping in her high heels, and for the first time all night Sin remembered that Thea was just a girl her own age, and not some ageless socialite deigning to grace them with her presence.

"Are you nervous?" asked Roy.

Sin shrugged. "More nervous that I'll get picked up by the wrong dude and he'll be mad when it turns out I'm not going to give him a blowjob."

"So we'll take him out, too. I mean, if we beat up dudes who hit women for not blowing them, it's not exactly a wasted night."

"Shit," said Sin. "I wasn't even talking about getting hit. I just meant, like, yelled at by some douche in a bimmer, or guilt-tripped by a sad sack who thought he was entering into a business transaction. You do know not to hit guys who are just sad sacks, right?"

"I'm _stronger_ now," said Roy. "Not more retarded."

"Good thing, Abercrombie. Because I don't think you could stand to be any more retarded."

Roy opened his mouth to reply, but Thea came back downstairs, carrying a small sheer gift bag.

"Here," she said, pressing it into Sin's hands. "It's not much, but I thought maybe you'd like it? So you can experiment with your look."

Through the glittering mesh, Sin could make out a few lipsticks and eye shadows, and even the small glass bottle labeled "Givenchy" in a font that dared you to drop a couple hundred dollars on the spot.

"I don't—" she began.

"Just take it," said Thea, smiling. "Please. I've been trying to declutter anyway."

And, absurdly, that was the thing that night that brought Sin closest to tears. Not being threatened in a stranger's car, or getting hit in the face, or watching Roy almost murder a man, but a bag of cosmetics, cheerfully given, friendship like a terrifying debt she knew she would never be able to repay.


	2. Roy

**Missing Scene from 2x18, "Deathstroke"**

Roy stopped to see Sin on his way out of Starling City. He felt more comfortable in the apartment Sin was squatting in than he did in his girlfriend's house, and that reassured him that leaving was the right choice.

"Do you know where you're going?" Sin asked.

Roy shrugged.

"Do you know _why_ you're going?"

Roy shrugged again, then licked his lips. "Because I'm a danger to her. Like, I've _always_ been a danger to her, in the way some piece of shit from the Glades couldn't _not_ be a danger, but now I'm a fucked up freak."

He waited for Sin to offer some platitude, but she didn't bother. "I mean, yeah," she said instead. "But you'll be a danger to people _everywhere_."

"At least if I'm gone I'm not a danger to the people I care about." He offered a smile made lopsided by worry. "It's a pretty short list, you know."

"Yeah, well." Sin spread her hands to take in the filthy floor and peeling wallpaper and ancient sauerkraut smell of the room around her. "I notice you're not in a hurry to save me and all my finery from, uh, yourself."

"I'm less afraid of hurting you," said Roy. For just long enough to register, Sin looked hurt, and then the expression was gone. "No," he said. "I mean, I _could_ hurt you. And I'd hate myself, forever. But you're also... You're the real deal. You can handle yourself, like Thea couldn't."

"We're cockroaches," said Sin, "and she's a bird-of-paradise."

"I didn't mean it like _that_ ," said Roy. "Not like, she is inherently better than us, just that..."

"Just that you're dumping her because she is inherently better than us."

Roy clenched and unclenched his hands at his side. There were words he knew he wanted to say, but no way to bring them to his lips.

"Anyway," said Sin, leaning against the wall, "that's not what I was saying. Like, motherfucking cockroaches can survive anything. Nuclear explosions, crime... earthquakes. You take a bird-of-paradise off its island, and it just gives up and dies. Thea is a bird-of-paradise, and me and you, we'd eat her alive."

"Yeah," he said, and swallowed. "Something like that."

"Look, do you want a beer?" Sin gestured to the stolen hotel mini fridge that was currently camping out in the hallway.

"God yes."

Sin took out two bottles and then looked for an opener.

"Here," said Roy. "Wanna see something cool?" He held his hand out, and Sin passed him first one bottle, then, when he gestured for it, the other as well. Roy used his teeth as a bottle opener, then handed one beer back to her, grinning in a dumb way that, at least for the moment, was nothing like "tentative" or "angry" or "afraid," each type of smile one that she was more familiar with than this.

"That's gross," said Sin, grinning back. "I like it. Does it fuck up your teeth?"

"Nah, not if you do it right. But I can't do that shit with Thea. Party tricks for guttersnipes aren't exactly her bag."

They drank for a moment in companionable silence. Sometimes, when he was completely at peace, Roy felt like his old self—better than his old self—like a man in control of his own life.

"Anyway," he said. "I wanted to say thanks."

"Yeah?" Sin wrinkled her nose. "Why?"

"You're like the only person in the world who's doing the thing that I'm doing. Was doing. Would be doing, if O—the Arrow wasn't such an asshole."

"Didn't he literally shoot you in the leg?"

"Kind of." Roy turned the beer bottle in his hand, peeling at the label. "Yes."

Sin took a long drink. "I got the way better end of the bargain, no offense."

"I just thought... Like how many people are actually trying to save the world? Or, fuck the world, just the Glades? Thea's mom _murdered_ 500 people, almost murdered _us_ , and we couldn't get a guilty verdict. And I can't even be _mad_ about that, because she's Thea's mom. But I _am_ mad. Everything is all fucked up, forever. And I thought the Arrow wanted to fix it. I would follow anybody, to hell and back, if I thought they could actually fix it."

Sin finished her beer and took a step towards him, not so close that they touched. "I like you," she said. "For being stupid like me. For wanting to save the world."

She barreled into him, and it took Ray a long moment to realize that what she wanted was a hug. He wrapped his arms around her thin frame, bulked up by the leather jacket, and rested his chin in her greasy hair.

"I like you, too," he said. "I'm sorry I'm leaving." He inhaled, and underneath the smell of leather was something familiar and disconcerting.

"You smell like Thea," he said, when she finally pulled away.

"Oh." Sin blushed. "Yeah, I noticed that. She gave me a bunch of, like, face and lotion stuff, and now I think we use the same one. You know what else?"

Roy shook his head.

"I _like_ it. Not just the way the lotion just smells, but that it smells like Thea. It makes me feel like one goddamn thing in my whole goddamn life has gone right, besides helping Sara."

"You'll stay with her, right?" Roy said, the words coming out all in a rush. "I mean, it's not like Thea isn't looked after, but if it was you..."

"Yeah, I mean, totally. Of course I'll keep an eye on her. Besides, how else will I get more lotion? I can't afford that shit."

"Thea said something really fucked up to me once," said Roy slowly, wishing he had another beer. "She told me that she was a resource, and that I shouldn't forget that. As if her being my girlfriend and my boss wasn't enough, I should remember her as a _resource_ , too. If I wanted money for school, or to 'improve myself.'"

"She really cares about you," said Sin.

"I know," said Roy, glancing down at his hands, and unclenching them again. He didn't even remember making a fist. "And I really, really can't handle that."

"C'mon," said Sin, putting a careful hand on his back. "I know a guy who runs a shelter in Blüdhaven. You'll be safe there."


	3. Thea

**Missing Scene from 2x23, "Unthinkable"**

As soon as Roy dropped their argument to answer a text, something in Thea broke.

"Don't look at that," she snapped. "Be here, right now, _with me_ for once."

But Roy only looked from his phone to her face and back, wearing the exact expression that reminded her how young he was, underneath his posturing and rage.

"I have to do this," he said. "This is the last thing, and then we can leave together, start over somewhere better than Starling City."

"This is not going to be your last thing," said Thea slowly. "If you do this, there are always going to be more 'last things' to keep you here."

"The city is under attack! We're at _war_." He bit his lip and looked away, like he always did when he yelled, half-hating himself and half-hating whoever had made him angry.

"And you are not a soldier," said Thea, cupping his chin and making him meet her eyes. "It's not _your_ war."

"Then whose is it, Thea? Who do you think is going to save people?"

"The Arrow. The Canary. The goddamn _national guard_. Basically anyone in the world who isn't _you_."

Roy shook his head and stepped away from her. "You don't understand," he said. "You're like a bird-of-paradise, and—"

"Oh my god," breathed Thea. "Are you really going to start parroting Sin?"

"What the fuck do parrots have to do with it?" snapped Roy. "Why are you two both all about birds suddenly?"

"That line, where you guys are _cockroaches_ , and I'm some delicate creature who needs to be protected, is total bullshit. Bull. Shit. And I'm done with it, Roy. From you and from her. Why can't you both just act like normal people, so I can act like a normal person, so we can just lead normal fucking lives and be happy? Why is that so hard?"

But Roy was already looking at his phone.

"Go," she said, suddenly exhausted, and sat down on the edge of his bed. "Get the fuck out of here."

He paused at the doorway. "Trust me," he murmured. "I'll come back, and then we'll go."

Thea inhaled, exhaled, then forced a smile and looked at him. "I trust you," she said.

And maybe if she hadn't said that last simple sentence, it wouldn't have been so humiliating when she found his quiver an hour later. Maybe, if he hadn't lied that final time, it would have been bearable. But he did, and she had, and now she was left with a hundred red flags organizing themselves into a message, moments that should've already come together in her head finally pairing off, a puzzle so perfectly completed that she felt stupid for not putting it together earlier.

She was not a goddamn bird-of-paradise who needed to be sheltered, not a little sister or a dumb girlfriend to be protected, but the butt of a joke, the one person they'd all thought was too weak to handle the truth. Suddenly Roy's awkward deference to Ollie around the club made sense; he and Sin's secret adventures were put into a context more serious than the drugs she'd assumed they were dabbling in behind her back.

Thea understood, for a moment, what Ollie had felt when he walked back into their house for the first time in five years. She was surrounded by the artifacts of her life, but none of it was still _her life_. Her mother was dead. Her father was a madman and a murderer. Her childhood crush was actually her brother, who'd died before she could ever call him that, and her brother was a stranger who ran around rooftops in a mask. Her boyfriend was that stranger's goddamn _sidekick_ , and Sin was a girl who'd pretended to be her friend just to keep her out of the fray.

She wanted to cry, and to be held.

But everyone who could hold her had already walked out. Together, she realized. They were all together except for her. They were all being the national guard, and she was sitting alone in her boyfriend—her ex-boyfriend's—apartment, clutching a quiver full of arrows, with her father's business card in her pocket.

"Okay," she said out loud. "Okay. If this is the world, then I'm going to be part of the world."

Instead of crying, she took out her phone and called Malcolm, the one person in all of this who'd believed in her, who hadn't been surprised that she was willing to shoot.

"Hi," she said, swallowing, when he picked up. "Hi, dad."

And if this was the way of the world, if Roy was going to drop her to follow Ollie, and Sin was going to drop her to follow Sara, if you had to put on a goddamn mask to get their attention, then that was what she was going to do.

What Thea thought, as she climbed into her father's waiting car, was that this time she would make herself impossible to ignore.


End file.
